Pages

FREE KINDLE FOR PC

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

A DOWN HOME CHRISTMAS

{Excerpt from BRING ME THE HEAD OF McCORD!}So many different kinds of death hunted us this Christmas Eve all through the French Quarter,

I would’ve gotten a headache trying to count them all –

If I already hadn’t had one – to go along with the broken ribs, fingers, and nose.

I looked over at Alice, my ghoul friend. The very sight of her made me smile sadly. The night was somehow better. Oh, the fear was still there. We were going to die. But seeing her love for me in her eerie eyes said the impossible was possible. Her ability to turn to mist had been ripped from her by DayStar - but not her love for me or my love for her. There were some things Darkness could not steal from you -- you had to throw them away yourself. And I was holding onto her love with both bruised hands.

Wasn’t that what Love did? Sacrifice for the one loved? My heart ached at the thought of all Alice meant to me, and I knew that love did more, was more.

Love was a magic garment, spun of a fabric so thin that it couldn't be seen, yet so strong that even my mother, Death, could not tear it, a cloak that could not be frayed by use, that brought warmth into what is often an unbearably cold world - but at times love could also be as heavy as chain mail. Bearing the mantle of love on those occasions, when it was a sacred weight, made it more precious. While in better times, it caught the wind in its sleeves like wings and lifted you. With a low prayer for forgiveness, Alice had buried the statue of the Madonna and taken its shawl. I had done the same with the statue of Joseph, taking its robe and hood.

We kneeled beside the wooden manger in the St. Louis Cathedral’s courtyard Nativity Scene.

Right in plain sight of the slowly sniffing and scouting horrors prowling for us.

I didn’t even know some of the monsters hunting us. I knew enough to know Alice and I were goners.

Winged Gahe. Starved Amal. Scaled Soyoko.

And the ghosts, given flesh, fangs, and claws by DayStar, of all the people Alice had eaten over the decades.

Who would have guessed a wisp of a girl like Alice had such an appetite?

I stiffened at the tolling in the distance. I heard the bells, ringing their familiar, mocking refrain :

PEACE ON EARTH. GOOD WILL TOWARDS MEN.

Peace. Good Will.

In despair, I bowed my head.

‘There is no peace on earth!' I thought bitterly.

'For hate is strong and mocks the song. The innocent die. The helpless cry out. Does anybody hear them?’

The night winds became soft words: ‘You kneel on holy ground and dare to ask that?’

I looked up. I recognized the stern ghost of a priest, a book of prayers or some such in his hands. Alice went as pale as I had ever seen her.

“Pere Antoine!”

He spoke in razored whispers. “For my sins in the Inquisition I am bound to this plane. So Friar Antonio de Sedella is now who I am.”

I saw the self-hate in his eyes. I saw the same look in Alice's.The world is filled with broken people. The tragedy wasn't that people were broken. The world breaks most of us. The tragedy was that so few were mended. But if we are loved, we become stronger at the broken places.I looked to the horrors so near. Though Pere Antoine and Alice had spoken low, the creatures had stiffened. To speak again would be to bring them to us.None of us can ever save himself. We are the means of one another’s salvation, and only by the hope that we give to others can we lift ourselves out of the darkness into the light.I was going to die anyway. Why not die, letting Pere Antoine hear that I believed in him even when he no longer could?

I shook my head and whispered back. “No, before Katrina, you helped me. You’ve helped others before and since.”

The winged Gahe spun at my words, and I blurted out, “With my last words, I say you don’t deserve to be bound here. You are Pere Antoine! You are a ghost of God!”

So many horrors rushed us that I got sick to my stomach. I edged in front of Alice to take the brunt of the charge.This was going to hurt so bad. Pere Antoine’s head cocked as if he were hearing words spoken into his very mind, and his ghost eyes grew wet.

He gestured, speaking loud:

“Dark Spawns, this is Holy Ground!”

The Shadowlanders must’ve forgotten that in their lust for our deaths. It bought them their own.

Pere Antoine, the prayer book tumbling to the grass, slapped both hands on the shoulders of Alice and me.

A warm tingle cascaded through me. Reality smeared in spirals of fiery, golden stardust as if God were wiping clean a chalkboard.

Sand, not grass, was suddenly beneath our knees. Cutting through me was a cold wind that can only be birthed in the desert.

My mouth got drier than the winds. The manger scene was now real. A young man and a younger woman were looking sheer love at a cooing baby. Outside the stable, high in the night sky, rippled haunting sounds that only angels could sing. My bones were transformed into trilling tuning forks.

Pere Antoine kneeled beside me.

“God is not dead, nor does He sleep. No matter how dark, He always sees you. You are a special part of His heart, and you are never alone - though sometimes it seems that way. Due to their very natures, the wrong shall fail. And those who trust prevail.”

The baby locked eyes with mine, His eyes clear and echoing with strange wisdom and delight.

Pere Antoine whispered,

“He wanted you and Alice to have a 'down home' Christmas.”

The baby laughed long and light.

Alice reached over and squeezed my hand. “I was wrong, Victor. Our first Christmas together is THE first Christmas.”

And impossible though it was, the French Quarter bells rang all around us :

PEACE ON EARTH. GOOD WILL TOWARDS MEN.

***

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!

This is a version I think of as Victor Standish's version: not the tempo, tune, or words you expect. Give it a listen for me. Roland

Hi, Hilary:Sometimes I look around and see the pain we inflict upon others and upon ourselves, and the songs of Christmas seem a mockery. Then, I remember darkness has always been with us ... as has been the dawn. Have a great holiday season, Roland

He's Back!

VOODOO & LOVE IN THE FRENCH QUARTER

LOVE & UNDEATH IN THE FRENCH QUARTER

FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE AUDIO BOOK!

The supernatural predators come out after Katrina. Can two undead legends stop them?

AFTER KATRINA, THERE IS NONE BUT TWO TO STOP THE UNDEAD

ONLY $1.99 WHEN YOU BUY THE KINDLE BOOK!

LISTEN to GHOST OF A CHANCE

Can an author be drawn into his own fictional world and killed by his own characters?

HIBBS HAS FOUND HIS VOICE!

A tale of enchantment

Souls At The Crossroads

Where do you need to be?

THE DEADLIEST ENEMY IS WITHIN

What if Stephen King wrote of the life of a blood courier?

Listen to this haunting tale of horror and love

It is 1853. An undead Texas Ranger is on board a cursed ship in search of a murderer who is wearing the face of her last victim as a mask.

Listen to the LAST FAE

When the world is mad, there is little else to do but show them what true insanity is!

Can a man marry both the moon and the sun?

In the eclipse of myth, he can

What Defense is an innocent soul against the Powers of Darkness?

Let Hibbs, the cub with no clue, show you

Before Indiana Jones or Allan Quartermain

There was Sam McCord and his doomed love for Meilori Shinseen

Alice and Victor in 1834 New Orleans

Do a review and have a 1 in 13 chance to win a Johnny Depp autograph!

Buy_FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE

Hurricane Katrina has cast New Orleans into darkness. Predators, living and undead, close in on the helpless survivors. Can Samuel McCord and a vampire priest keep the French Quarter from being drowned in blood?

Buy_LET THE WIND BLOW THROUGH YOU

Enter the dangerous world of a Native American Noir thriller where forbidden love clashes with the politics of crime

In Memoriam - Maukie my cyber friend

Maukie - the virtual cat 2 3

RITES OF PASSAGE link

The earliest Samuel McCord adventure: Dare to board a fantasy Titanic as it sails into the Bermuda Triangle

VICTOR'S HERE!

BOOK 1: No one talks openly of the misty figures seen walking along New Orleans' iron-laced terraces, casting no shadow. Of the shapes seen rising from sewer grates. And no one willingly visits the crypt of Marie Laveau at midnight. Into this strange world arrives the street orphan, Victor Standish, from Charon's Greyhound. Charon has to keep up with the times ... the End Times. And the teen destined to be called the "Ulysses of the French Quarter" has come just in time for Hurricane Katrina, the End of All Things ... and the deadly love of the Victorian ghoul, Alice Wentworth.

VICTOR AND ALICE ARE BACK!

BOOK 2: Victor's a street kid. Alice is a Victorian ghoul Their love breaks the chain of reason. Their new adventures bring the French Quarter back from the brink of nightmare.

THE RIVAL

BOOK 3: Victor & Alice are in the French Quarter of 1834. Voodoo. Demigods. Revenants. And the hilarious Menage a Trois of Death! Oh, and someone we love dies at the end.

END OF DAYS is here!

St. Marrok's. The most eerie high school in which you will ever die. Its curriculum? The End of Days. Alice Wentworth plans to get an A+.

ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM link

SEQUEL to RITES OF PASSAGE: Come aboard the doomed DEMETER with undead Texas Ranger, Sam McCord, and sail with her into the depths of madness in ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM.

Buy_CREOLE KNIGHTS

SEQUEL to FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE: The dead rise. Elder Beings strain to enter our world through Katrina devastated New Orleans. And the Angel of Death is kidnapped to clear their way. Can Sam McCord stem the tide of madness in time?

Buy_THE LAST FAE

Once there was an age undreamed where legends walked this earth … and nightmares, too. Terrible were the battles, tragic the outcome of the wars. Until finally there were only two survivors : the nightmare and one bruised legend. These are the legend’s stories, each one a different facet of the same priceless gem – a jewel that has come to believe herself worthless. So come. Listen to her. Listen to THE LAST FAE.

GHOST OF A CHANCE

What if what you wrote became real?

BURNT OFFERINGS

When dreams are sacrificed, it is the soul that burns.

CHECK OUT THE FUN!

Explore if you dare

Buy_THE LAST SHAMAN

Journey with the last Lakota shaman, Wolf Howl. The white govenments call him Drew August. Those who hunt him call him Death. The last day of Man has dawned. Watch as Wolf Howl turns to meet his human hunters. Shadow, the love of his life, returns to aid his hunters. Then, Mankind's death descends. Can he save Shadow before the world's time runs out?

BRING ME THE HEAD OF McCORD!

Only 99 cents. C'mon. Take a chance.

GHOST WRITERS IN THE SKY

LEARN TO WRITE BETTER AND LAUGH ALONG THE WAY

LAST EXIT TO BABYLON

At the dawn of the End of All Things, the Last Fae finds there is no hope ... but love.

IT'S HERE TO BUY!!

The trilogy concludes. Not even the eclipse of myth is forever. But love is. And eclipses return. Listen. The voice of Blake, son of Man, is calling across the night skies.

Buy THE PATH BACK TO DAWN

Only in the eclipse of myth can a young man find himself with both the Moon and the Sun as his brides. Can he survive what follows?

Buy_LOVE LIKE DEATH

From the pages of THE LAST FAE springs this paranormal romance/thriller. Fallen, the last fae, discovers the name of the young teenager to whom she lost her heart : Blake Adamson.But she also discovers what happens when you believe your fears over your love : heartache and loss. And so Blake Adamson finds himself torn between two loves : one fae, the other an alien drinker of souls. Their love is deadly, but love, like death, will have its way.

THE BEAR WITH 2 SHAD0WS link

Based on the stories my Lakota mother told me as a child when I was deathly ill in a freezing Detroit basement apartment. Think a Native American LORD OF THE RINGS.

OCTORBER 3RD

Read the shadowy origin of ROSE RED

FROM THE GREAT BEYOND HOP!

You dare not miss it!!

ZOMBIE PREPAREDNESS!

LISTEN TO THE CDC

Thanks, Alex!

THE WORLDS OF ROLAND YEOMANS

Donna Hole astonishes with her insights on my linked worlds

FANTASTIC REVIEW OF THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH

Michael Di Gesu does a masterful review. I am honored by his friendship

StatCounter

LIFE LESSONS taught me by GYPSY

Dedicated to GYPSY

PAPYRUS PRODUCTIONS

Have Wendy make your book into a trailer that wows the reader!

HELP THE HURTING

100% of the profits for ALL my books this FEBRUARY are going to THE SALVATION ARMY. My Valentine's gift to the hurting.

Buy_BLOOD WILL TELL

One lone telepath finds himself a helpless spectator as the race of Man is subjugated into mindless drones by the very blood within their bodies.When the war is over, and he finds himself totally alone ... How can he go on and why?

CALL ME TOMBS

The last Lakota Heyoka faces voodoo and ultimate evil in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania with his Hellhound, Puppy

CATCH FIRE!

BLOG TOUR FOR ALEX J, CAVANAUGH'S NEWEST NOVEL

SIV'S BLOGFEST!

The Norse Gods Are Watching You!

BRAINE at TALK SUPE

center>

NERDY IS THE NEW SEXY!

BECOME A JEDI KNIGHT FOR TEENS

THE SECRET OF SPRUCE KNOLL

Help save the endangered species of Earth by buying THE SECRET OF SPRUCE KNOLL!

AMAZON KEEPS SELLING OUT!

Written by the author who could very well turn out to be the new William Faulkner, Elliot Grace